In today's turbulent world, Ukraine is one of the hot topics of the media. Almost every day, another news flashes up related to this country. Economics, politics, culture, the national question … Journalists do not need to look - they themselves are highlighted. You can see everything, down to the smallest detail. But at the same time, the last name in the world news is very rare and, as a rule, in small print, is the name of Yushchenko, a person with whose name the whole life of Ukraine was previously connected. Where is Yushchenko now? What happened to this relatively healthy person? And this mysterious story with poisoning that once excited the whole world … What did Yushchenko's recent years turn into?
Biography
Usually, when there is a lengthy narrative about a person (politician, military figure, economist, cultural figure), it is customary to begin with his brief biography. Otherwise, many nuances and causal relationships immediately slip away. Do not depart from tradition. So, the third Ukrainian president, Yushchenko, biography.
The future head of the future independent state Viktor Andreevich Yushchenko began his life back in 1954, having passed his childhood, youth, a considerable part of his mature years in the Soviet era. Typical life of a villager from Sumy region: a school, where even then he was a boy with a noticeable bright future, a financial institution, and finally a military duty. Member of the CPSU, as befits a representative of the Soviet nomenclature.
When he was very young, everyone remembers him as a sweet, kind and diligent boy with a good upbringing. But also always there was a certain spark in him - the desire for leadership and victory.
In 1971, the young man graduated from a local school, and already in 1975 - the Ternopil Financial and Economic Institute. After receiving the diploma, the former president of Ukraine Yushchenko began working as chief accountant, and a little later joined the army. After serving the due time in the border troops and returning home, Viktor Andreevich decided to join the CPSU.
Yushchenko met the collapse of the Soviet Union in the capital of the Ukrainian SSR in a considerable position as the top management of the financial structures of the union republic. A career is good, but not particularly outstanding. Who could see the future leader of Ukraine in him? No connections, no weight, no personal qualities …
Dashing 90s
It is difficult to determine all the events of the first half of the 1990s, but it was Yushchenko in the early years of the country's independence who was nominated for a rather serious post of head of the National Bank of Ukraine. And he managed not to stumble, not to completely ruin the financial structure of the state. Wherever Yushchenko is now, but it is precisely with the name of the competent official that many of the nuances in the field of finance of the young Ukrainian state are connected: the monetary system of the national currency, the Ukrainian hryvnia, has been introduced, a bank-mint has formed, and the State Treasury has appeared.
Within the framework of such transformations and brilliant financial activity, V. Yushchenko was declared several years later by the Western media one of the most brilliant bankers in the world.
Today it is difficult to say where ordinary PR is in these facts (it cannot be said that Ukraine of the last decade of the twentieth century was a prosperous country), and where is a simple statement of the effective work of a competent specialist. In any case, the future president managed not to collapse on the slippery steps of the administrative ladder. And at the end of the twentieth century, he left the financial structure, changing the role of a brilliant financial specialist to a promising politician.
In government
In 1999, Viktor Yushchenko became the head of the country's executive branch. During the year he was in office, he managed to leave a memory of himself as an active politician and effective administrator. Remembering his previous activities, from the very beginning he drew attention to the banks and the processes taking place in them. Among the reforms that had a great impact on the life of Ukraine are the normalization of the state budget due to the rejection of the use of short-term cash loans, which the government had previously taken to pay pensions and salaries to the population.
Moreover, he struggled with the shadow business, sought to increase the budget through taxes for businessmen conducting dishonest commercial operations.
The results of the activities of the head of government were clearly visible. In the economic history of the country, largely following the results of Yushchenko’s work and thanks to the implementation of his reforms, the GDP begins to rise, serious transformations have appeared in the calculations and obligatory payments of budgets of all levels, and it has become clear that the country's financial level has grown. Barter and the search for loans were in the past, which also worked positively for almost all sectors of the economy. Finally, the accumulated public debts to the population were eliminated. Since those years, payments to pensioners, students, wages, etc. were issued on time.
True, it should be noted that society was still dissatisfied, since the level of state payments was small.
Touching upon other results, it should be noted that V. A. Yushchenko effectively fought corruption, denouncing clever operations of fraudsters: he ordered the arrest of Y. Tymoshenko (though he then released her), implemented a large-scale event under the slogan “Ukraine without Kuchma” and so on Further.
The prime minister’s vigorous activity was interrupted at its height, in 2001 V. Yushchenko left his post. According to the country's parliament, the government turned out to be excessively weak and incompetent to be further in power.
Head of country
Yushchenko Victor was not in opposition to the government for long. In 2002, during the next parliamentary elections, the former prime minister believed in his capabilities and political forces. Quite quickly, Our Ukraine bloc took shape, and Yushchenko became its representative. With the support of Yulia Tymoshenko, he went around all other candidates and won the election.
It was at this time that the leader's firmness and integrity were revealed. The election of the next president was scheduled for 2004, while there was no clear leader in this race. The beginning of the election campaign in the first round did not nominate a winner. Although Yushchenko took first place, he did not have enough votes to immediately become president. Therefore, in September 2004, a second round of presidential elections in the Ukrainian state was scheduled.
The mystery of the second round
More than ten years have passed since those events, but they have not been able to give unambiguous assessments, especially in connection with the events in Ukraine in recent years.
Viktor Yushchenko lost the second round of re-elections. It would seem that we must calmly admit defeat and congratulate the winner. But, as it happens in most cases in the former Soviet Union republics, the loser strongly disagreed with the results and sent his protest to the Supreme Court of the country. And the court sided with him! In the political history of the countries of the former USSR, the case is unprecedented. It turned out that the results were allegedly falsified, and the elections themselves were in violation of the procedures. Is it so? In Ukraine, the era of Poroshenko to seek ends is useless.
And after all, he was a good head of state, and compared with the current president, he can be perceived as an intelligent, logically thinking leader. He pursued a realistic foreign policy course aimed at friendly relations with the winners of the twentieth-century geopolitical struggle - the USA and the EU, in the eastern direction the policy was anti-Russian, but not recklessly unbridled, as it is today. Inside the country, he took up charity, ennobled the cities of the state, and so on.
Now even where Yushchenko lives is unknown: some talk about the state dacha, others talk about a private mansion, and yet with him bright programs thundered throughout the country aimed at improving the lives of Ukrainians. In particular, in 2007 a presidential decree appeared that demanded the implementation of the principles for the development and refinement of apartments, the construction of cheap housing was under way, which would provide all residents of the country with their own apartments.
Another program is the project “Warm the child with love”. This is a multi-purpose cycle of activities to help large families, orphans and babies who do not have parental care and care. The project was actively supported by many large businessmen.
In general, the president was much involved in the social sphere, working not only on economic issues. He even tried to educate a new nation, utopianly seeking to develop goodness for each other, mutual love. To do this, he developed a number of new articles that were added to the Constitution of the country.
But all this does not destroy the dark spots on the biography of V. Yushchenko during the 2004 re-election. Was he legally elected president, or is this another example of a clever backstage fight and the use of the state structure?
Poisoning
However, when it comes to the fate and career of this politician, most contemporaries will recall not the ill-fated coming to power in 2004, but the mysterious poisoning of Yushchenko. The truth about this has not yet been disclosed, although public interest is high. Almost simultaneously, the man’s face turned into a mask of an old, afflicted person. Most residents of Ukraine experienced a complete shock: instead of a young politician on the Maidan, a gray-haired martyr with an ugly face suddenly appeared for twenty years.
For more than a decade, almost the entire world has been trying to solve the mystery of Viktor Yushchenko’s illness. The main questions: why Yushchenko has such a face, why he has terrible changes in his appearance and how doctors interpret it.
The first version. Poisoning
Many qualified specialists sought to understand how the reality is with the face of the former president of Ukraine and who is behind the attempt on him. Today, there are several realistic assumptions, but the lack of facts and the obvious politicization of the concept prevent the most plausible and defining any of the theories. In fact, they are all divided into two versions: proof of the existence or denial of Yushchenko’s poisoning.
The first version confirms the poisoning of the leader of the state. By the first assumption, which has many supporters, it becomes clear when and how Yushchenko got sick. One wonders what about the face, the organism as a whole: during the next dinner, unexpected poisoning occurred with the aim of killing, eliminating the outstanding leader from the political arena. It led to such dire consequences, and only an incredible happy coincidence of circumstances helped Yushchenko to escape and stay alive.
Today, it is even officially documented that politicians ate and drank at a dinner party. There is a version that David Zhvania should have killed Yushchenko. Before that there was another banquet, with the co-owner of Foxtrot. One of those present later died under strange circumstances: he was hospitalized and nothing more was heard of him. Before dinner - a visit to a long-time friend in Chernigov and a tasting of "home-made" cognac without a snack.
But this is the official Ukrainian version of his illness - the enemies poisoned the country's leader with dioxin during the re-election in early autumn 2004. Yushchenko’s poisoning with dioxide is what most Ukrainians now think. The consequences were not as terrible as political opponents would like, but the face was disfigured. That left one question - who mutilated Yushchenko?
The answer to it was given in different ways, but the basis was anti-Russian tendencies and, of course, hostility to the most prominent opponents of Yushchenko. Finding enemies in torn apart Ukraine was not difficult.
Second version
Proponents of this version, which is also very popular, believe that there was no poisoning. The problem is that Yushchenko in the course of his active political activity brought his body into a state of severe mental stress. Because of this, he was constantly sick. One of Viktor Yushchenko’s next illnesses that brought him down in the fall of 2007 is leprosy (leprosy). Doctors can even see this by external signs:
- There is a radical change in the patient's face.
- Ears are swollen.
- The cartilaginous skeleton of the auricles changes so that the patient’s personality cannot be determined by their shape.
- A person can become gloomy, gloomy.
There are other symptoms that are characteristic of leprosy, not dioxin poisoning.
Initial signs
The causes and course of the disease could tell a lot about the events of the first days after what happened. Fortunately, Yushchenko’s condition before and after the poisoning is completely different. After a working day on September 5, Viktor was at a friendly dinner with a senior Ukrainian official and close friend. At the beginning of the next day, he began to complain of intense headaches. By the end of the day there was vomiting. It is characteristic that the patient did not agree to the usual cleansing of the stomach, treatment and moving to the hospital.
A day later, in the evening of September 8, English journalists who visited him reported that the Ukrainian politician noted intense back pain, that his speech was indistinct and lisp. The face had an unnaturally pink hue. It is worth noting that at that time no one spoke about the poisoning of Yushchenko.
The next day, the patient's face became distorted, there was a feeling of stiffness of the upper lip. During this day, Yushchenko went for treatment to the Austrian capital with a diagnosis of gastric flu and pancreatitis.
In the Vienna hospital "Rudolfinerhaus", where he was lying for the first time a little more than a week in mid-September, and the second - from the end of September to the tenth of October, an uncharacteristic combination of diseases of the mass of internal organs and physiological structures was determined.
During the development of the disease, the most sensitive were the pathology of the skin and acute back pain. Moreover, the situation with the skin became worse and worse. Initially, only the face was spoiled by the disease, but then the disease passed to the body and limbs. However, during this period there was no discussion about the poisoning of Yushchenko with dioxin.
Media influence
The media also had a noticeable impact on the problem. As soon as the hot news about Yushchenko’s poisoning reached the journalists, electronic and paper editions immediately began to consider the versions of this event and the question, so real is this terrible event. In fact, Ukrainian and world media approached this plot rather one-sidedly, bringing world society to one clear thought - Yushchenko was poisoned by his political enemies.
Fluctuations of doctors
Yushchenko himself between two visits to the Austrian hospital at the end of September confirmed the thesis that they were going to destroy him. The Ukrainian parliament generally believed him. Looking at Yushchenko before and after the poisoning (or pseudo-poisoning), it was possible to understand that the person experienced a severe shock. But to the politician himself in the conditions of intense political struggle and the presidential election, such a version was very beneficial. In addition, it was necessary to somehow explain the health problems that arose. Recognition of leprosy, in fact, could lead to the end of a political career.
Doctors are another matter. In the same September, Austrian doctors treating a Ukrainian said that the materials about his poisoning were incorrect and the question of why Yushchenko had been poisoned could not be posed at all. Similar conclusions were made by medical commissions in Ukraine. Despite severe pressure, doctors found no signs of poison in the politician's body.
The situation changed only after three months. In December, a blood test showed the presence of dioxin. At the same time, its concentration was constantly increasing, reaching an indicator several thousand times higher than normal.
It was at this time that several American physicians were imperceptibly connected to the process.
It was necessary to find such a poison, which is detected by signs similar to Yushchenko’s disease, that he does such things with his face immediately and in the near future. The closest to these "requirements" were dioxins. Of course, poison experts can see that the president of Ukraine has other signs. But it was important to somehow approach the desired topic, and there the possibilities will appear.
For this, Yushchenko donated blood, and American doctors added dioxin, after which any laboratory found poison - there is such a version.
In light of this, it is clear why domestic toxicologists Yushchenko was exempted from analyzing the features of the toxicological process - they would receive blood from him personally for research and would report many different uncomfortable details about Yushchenko’s poisoning.
Change in appearance
Meanwhile, the change in appearance obviously did not occur according to the official version of the poisoning, but according to the supporters of the leprosy disease. Initially, the disease terribly disfigured the politician, but then the treatment for leprosy slightly improved his appearance. What do Yushchenko look like now? Хуже, чем до сентября 2004 г., но лучше, чем до курса лечения, который неоднократно повторялся за границей. Хотя сам Ющенко оговорился, что его выздоровление связано с выведением диоксина из крови, но отказался сообщать какие-либо еще детали.
